In my 24 years as an aesthetician I’ve seen and heard a lot in the beauty industry. In the last two weeks I’ve read of some miraculous discoveries in the war against wrinkles and aging skin! First, it was the Snail Facial. Estheticians in Japan claim by allowing snails to deposit their mucus upon your face & neck your skin will look younger. I try not to imagine the feeling of snails and their little tentacles creeping all over me. The latest craze is the Bird Poop Facial. I almost upped my oatmeal when I opened my Register Star to read...

To celebrate International Women’s Day, last week a Brazilian restaurant chain offered free meals to women who replied “yes” when asked if they are beautiful. Negative online comments made by women and men seem to have missed the point by only considering the physical aspects of beauty. Merriam-Webster defines beauty as, the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : Loveliness. As an aesthetician, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in beauty and...

There really aren’t too many things that I have borrowed and never returned. I don’t borrow much in general, except for the old joke about borrowing a piece of gum. No one has ever wanted that back. The only item that I have in my possession that is not rightfully mine is a back scratcher. I love this thing. I borrowed it from my older son once years ago. I can’t recall where he got it. Some vacation place. Maybe the store at Lambert’s Cafe in Missouri. Do you know that place? It’s the home of throwed rolls. Yes, that’s their slogan. And yes,...

I wonder if people with the last name Smiley really are. I wonder how much longer phone books will exist. I wonder if kids today make crank calls. I doubt it. They don’t talk on the phone and sending a text message that says “Is your refrigerator running?” or “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” isn’t the same. I don’t even remember what Prince Albert is so I doubt they know that joke. I wonder if people who live in year-round sunny climates have tulips. I wonder what spring means to them. I wonder if they have seasonal affective disorder. I...

Many of the authors that I work with want to make sure that their books come across with a sense of humor, a lightness. Perhaps that is one reason that they are drawn to work with me, as my humor comes through in my writing. My sense of humor helped establish me as a newspaper columnist and a speaker. Please note the pronoun there. My sense of humor. We all have one, well, most people do anyway, and we need to ring true with our own sense of funny. Mine, yours, ours. What works for you may not work for me. I am not a funny storyteller or...

It wasn’t that long ago that I was the one going on spring break. When I was a junior, one of my roommates and I roadtripped in her little green car. We drove all the way through, from Illinois to Florida, driving and sleeping in shifts. I remember curling up on the floorboard and putting my head on the seat to sleep. I also recall her stereo would rewind directly back to the beginning of a song on a cassette and we wore out Madonna’s “Crazy for You.” Our spring break week wasn’t the same as most colleges and we did not go to Daytona, which...